Facilitating learning and networking within the local Macintosh User Community since 1984

Welcome to Mac2MUG!

MAC2MUG is for people who want to learn from and interact with other users of Macintosh computers, iPhones, iPads and other Apple devices. We welcome visitors at our monthly meeting and hope that you will become a member.

Our meetings last for approximately two hours and are generally held the first Tuesday of each month.

Our next meeting — January 3rd — will feature:A Guided Tour Through macOS Sierra - A look at the new features in Apple's latest version of the Mac operating system.Please check back soon for the full meeting announcement.

A look at three ingenious gifts for iPhone, iPad or iPod touch users in your life, or as a gift to yourself

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Everywhere you go,
And wouldn’t a gift be nice
To pair with an iDevice?
Your loved one’s sure to glow from head to toe.

If there is a special someone in your life who owns an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, this season could be the perfect time to give a gift that is truly original, and Tuesday’s meeting showcased three of them. In the tradition of ladies first, Annette demonstrated a clever gizmo that gently attaches to an iPad, and allows you to interact with actual game pieces, puzzles and drawing surfaces, all of which can be touched, moved and manipulated on the table in front of you. This combination of fun and learning can be enjoyed by kids from ages four to ninety-two, and particularly by ages five through twelve. Rob presented an amazing little device which, at long last, solves the dilemma of how to backup and transfer files and photos to and from nearly any iOS device and nearly any computer, including some very old computers with which iTunes cannot be used. Roger showed off a tiny wonder which solves a problem even more challenging than how to operate your mobile device while wearing fluffy mittens: how to transmit music or any other sound, from any iOS device or iPod, to virtually any FM radio, be it in your living room or car. For three possible solutions to your gift-giving conundrums, we hope you joined us in a winter wonderland of unique presents; and dare we say it, one of those presents could be for yourself. We learned about gifts ever jolly and bright; merry meeting to all, and to all a good night.

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

A live demonstration of how to use the Apple TV system to select, stream, watch and play whatever and whenever you want

When was the last time you talked to your TV? Perhaps it was when you could find nothing compelling to watch, or perhaps while ranting during a Presidential debate. Fine and dandy, but when was the last time your TV answered you? You might want to hold on to your armchair because, to quote Apple, “The future of television is here.” On Tuesday, Roger gave a hands-on demonstration of Apple TV (a small device which connects to your own television), and showed how to use its many features, such as navigating by using the impressive Siri remote with speech recognition and touch interface; perusing and using 8000 apps for Apple TV, from lifestyle to learning to fitness to shopping to food; playing over 2000 games by using the remote, with its built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, as a game controller to virtually conquer alien planets, drive in the Indy 500, and more; not to mention enjoying your favorite TV shows, movies and live sports. To usher in this new age of television, those who joined us on Tuesday witnessed a man talking to a TV and a TV talking to a man. Phrased another way, if you happened to ask us what is on TV tonight, we had some spectacular answers.

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

The second half of our two-part series: How to transition from iPhoto to Apple’s newer Photos app to organize your photos and make them look spectacular

Sometimes, once is not enough, and so it was with our “Photos for Mac” topic. With an outpouring of enthusiasm and questions at the September meeting, it soon became obvious that we would need a sequel. Literally by popular demand, on Tuesday, Roger showed more of Photos’ capabilities, including auto-generated Years, Collections and Moments views, organizing photos via Folders and automatically-created People and Places albums, editing photos with tools such as Enhance, Rotate, Crop, Straighten, Flip and Red-eye filter, expanding what Photos can do via extensions, displaying your photos on a world map, searching your photos by the objects and scenery in them, showing off your photos in beautiful slideshows, and the ability to create your own printed photo books, prints, calendars and greeting cards. Apple claims that Photos allows you to rediscover memories in beautiful new ways, and all things considered, we heartily agree.

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

How to transition from iPhoto to Apple’s newer Photos app to organize your photos and make them look spectacular

Picture this: a free Macintosh app with which you can sort your digital photos, organize them by when and where they were taken, edit and improve your photos in various ways, automatically send those improvements to your other Apple devices, order printed goodies and gifts, and share your photos in numerous ways. In OS X El Capitan or Yosemite, that daydream is a reality, easily confirmed via a quick look in your Applications folder. Photos is Apple’s replacement for their iPhoto app, and its features list is impressive. On Tuesday, Roger showed Photos’ many highlights and how to use them, from sorting and organizing your photos to rotating, cropping and straightening, tweaking attributes such as color, brightness and exposure, accessing extensions, designing your own stunning, printed photo books, creating beautiful slideshows, and using iCloud Photo Library to synchronize it all with all your other Apple devices or even your PC. Both you and your visual memories will be delighted to learn that you do not need to be a pro to manage your photos well. Get the picture?

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

Much like an acorn, a parachute, a habanero pepper, a candy heart bearing the perfect romantic phrase, and Mighty Mouse, all of which clearly illustrate the concept that big things come in small packages, there are many apps for your Mac that require little storage space and open quickly, yet accomplish impressive tasks. What sorts of tasks? How about tracking parcels without needing to visit a single website, easing the reading of long lines without straining your eyes, finding words, synonyms and information almost instantly, easily keeping your Mac or your Mac’s display awake for specific amounts of time, and much more? Into every life, a little app must fall, and we have several. On Tuesday, Rob showcased a brand-new batch of diminutive apps which sport prodigious features, none of which will cost you a single red cent. We hope you joined us for some big information, and we assure you that said information did not amount to mere small talk.

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

A look at all three of the latest iPad models, with plenty of info to help decide which one is right for you

Decisions, decisions. Even if you already are certain that you want an iPad, which iPad is the perfect one for you? Small is good, but bigger is also good; how does one decide? On Tuesday, Roger eased your dilemma with hands-on demonstrations of the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4, solid information about the iPad Pro, pros and cons of each model, and where each model excels. We also learned about numerous new features in iOS 9.3, including Slide Over, Split View, the Shortcut Bar, and so much more. If you are considering buying an iPad or upgrading from the one you have, this meeting will helped you choose the ideal iPad for you: not too big, not too small, not even too middle-sized, but just right.

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

How to create entertaining videos on your Mac, and upload them to YouTube

Meet Al. Al recently bought a shiny new Mac, hoping to make videos with it. Just when Al was getting comfortable, thinking he could skate by with a few informational videos, along came Annette, who challenged him to create a video involving one of his deadly-boring, bicycle-related topics, but with a catch. Annette insisted that the video must actually be fun and interesting. On Tuesday, Al took his best shot at it, and in the process, discussed video-capture equipment such as your camera or iPhone, explored how to use Apple’s Final Cut Pro software, explained several video production techniques, showed how to tell an engaging story with images, and demonstrated how to keep an audience from falling into a deep sleep. Did Al succeed? You were the judge, because those who joined us on Tuesday brought their thumbs with them, and thumbs up or thumbs down determined whether Al had created a tedious bicycle video, or pure YouTube gold. (PS: Al succeeded.)

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

First impressions are sometimes erroneous and usually incomplete, and this certainly applies to our featured app for April: Preview. Much like March’s TextEdit, Preview has far more capabilities than are readily apparent. Besides opening images or PDFs, with Preview, you can convert an image file to an impressive number of other image formats, tweak images by adjusting color, brightness and many other aspects, perform functions on PDFs including cropping and password-protecting, and much more. On Tuesday, Tom guided us through several of the remarkable features in Preview, some of which you might grow to love. Though you might not find yourself in a torrid affair with Preview, it could, at the very least, be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

Notes, lists, tables and much more: How to be productive, organized and clever without spending a dime, using a great app you already have on your Mac

With the assumption that it is no more than a lowly, bare-bones text editor, many Mac users are only marginally aware of TextEdit, which appears when we double-click a text or ‘Read Me’ file, then vanishes into the shadows. But if you write, make notes, keep lists of any kind, do research, or long to recall where you left off at your favorite websites, a gem lies waiting for you in your Applications folder. TextEdit makes easy work of creating text in many colors and styles, checking word meanings and accessing web info, doing inline photos, tables, text inventories of folder contents, bulleted and numbered lists, and far more. On Tuesday, Rob uncovered TextEdit’s surprising abilities, with tips and tricks and, yes, free software hotrodding to boot.

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

How to avert problems and keep your Mac running smoothly by using good techniques and free apps, and what to do when apps do crash

With a bit of luck, your Macintosh will likely be immune to the risks of floods, severe droughts, earthquakes, hurricanes, the melting of the polar ice caps, and, one hopes, a safe falling on it. Of course, no matter how stable the hardware or software, mishaps do occasionally happen, including baffling quirks and app crashes, but despite mini-catastrophes that appear to leave your Mac in a mire of virtual smoke and rubble, there is no need to pull the plug. On Tuesday, Rob showed how to recover gracefully from application failures, freezes and system crashes, and how to keep your Mac healthy via several free apps and some solid advice. Knowing how to make your hardware last longer, how to prevent crashes when possible, and how to avoid problems such as cluttered memory and even overheating, can lead to a problem-free Mac. You will feel better and your Mac will bloom, notwithstanding the possibility of a piano falling from the sky.

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

A tour of some of the best features in Apple’s newest Macintosh operating system

The dizzying heights of modern technology often bring amazing new functionality, and so it is with Mac OS X 10.11. Apple’s latest operating system, El Capitan, is named after the monolithic mountain in Yosemite National Park, and it shares at least one aspect with its namesake: impressiveness. On Tuesday, Roger demonstrated many of the new features in El Capitan, including faster performance, a new Spotlight to make searching easier, the ability to work in multiple apps at the same time using Split View, an even better Mission Control to help you find that one lost window, a new Notes app, a simple wiggle of the cursor to magnify itself, and more. And lest you suspect that your Mac will be excluded, El Capitan can run on many earlier Macs, some as old as 8 years, and upgrading is free. And speaking of dizzying heights, the original El Capitan stands an imposing 3,000 feet high, but if you would care to beat that, simply install El Capitan on a Mac laptop and take it with you on your next flight up into the blue.

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

How to view it and play it, from navigating YouTube to employing some great software for enjoying problem-free home videos and full-length movies

Straight out of the box, Macs can certainly play video, but if you have ever wished for better ways to play those videos, or have ever tried to open a video file which your Mac does not recognize, this meeting can save you a lot of time and trouble. On Tuesday, Tom showed how to find your way around YouTube, from searching its vast collections to understanding YouTube’s controls. And Rob showed an ingenious free app for downloading videos, full-featured apps for playing video, how to open those pesky videos that your Mac normally cannot play, how to play DVDs, and how to use a remote control with your Mac while propping up your feet and enjoying the view. What do your friends and relatives and Leonardo DiCaprio and Scarlett Johansson and Robert Redford and Julianne Moore have in common? They can all look amazing on your Macintosh screen. The only missing elements might be the noisy couple behind you and the theater usher to sweep up the popcorn.

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

With some great fonts installed on your Mac, be they formal, script, cartoon, dingbat or others, you can create beautiful documents, letters, crafts, scrapbooking projects and so much more. And how much will this beauty deplete your bank account? The costs of commercial fonts can be enormous, but the wonderful news is that there are tens of thousands of fonts available that will not cost you a single penny, and they are easily found. On Tuesday, Annette showed where you can find free fonts, how to download and install them, and how to utilize an app which is already on your Mac: Font Book. We also explored a simple way to insert special characters so that a sentence such as, “While discussing zoology at the cafe, Emily was unpleasantly surprised to find a jalapeno in her creme brulee” can be correctly typed as, “While discussing zoölogy at the café, Emily was unpleasantly surprised to find a jalapeño in her crème brûlée.” That diacritical tilde will not sweeten the sting of the jalapeño, but your spelling will be perfect. If you joined us for a good look at fonts, though you might have left the November meeting as a fontaholic, everything you type will look all the better for it.

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!

A tale of software, hardware, features and magic which inspired our presenter to buy himself an iPhone 6s, and one for his wife!

A few decades ago, the offerings from the national telephone company monopoly consisted of a single basic phone model in a small choice of colors, or perhaps a Princess phone for the bedroom. In 2015, the choices are mammoth, not to mention mobile. What, then, led this month’s presenter to purchase the just-released iPhone 6s — two of them in fact? On Tuesday, Roger detailed the many features of the new iPhone which guided him to a clear decision, such as the speed provided by Apple’s custom-designed A9 chip, a gorgeous screen, the ‘3D Touch’ interface, faster networking, possibly the most advanced mobile-phone camera on the market, an impressive new rear-facing FaceTime HD camera, Apple Pay, and a whole lot more. If you were among those who attended, we suspect you found much to like about our meeting, and about the iPhone 6s, to the point that you too might be inspired to make it your next phone. And golly, your significant other might like one too.

Writing and creative image credits for our meeting notices goes to MAC2 Secretary and Creative Genius - Rob Ellis. If you had fun reading, then you are really in for a treat when you attend our meetings and see his presentations!